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AHSN success at RCP Patient Care Awards

A Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network’s Improvement Academy programme won a prestigious Royal College of Physicians’ Patient Care Award at a ceremony in Manchester last night.

The electronic Frailty Index (eFI) team won the Innovation category, which recognises outstanding clinical activity that contributes to excellent patient care in an innovative and forward-thinking way.

The eFI helps primary care providers identify older people with frailty who face an increased risk of care home admission, hospitalisation and mortality by using information within a patient’s electronic health record.

It was described as ‘one of the most effective pieces of innovation I have ever come across’ by Dr Martin Vernon, NHS England’s National Clinical Director for Older People and Integrated Care, when he spoke at the Yorkshire & Humber AHSN’s Innovation, Improvement & Impact Conference in January this year.

The eFI was developed by the University of Leeds, TPP, the University of Bradford, the University of Birmingham and Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and funded by the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care, Yorkshire and Humber.

The Yorkshire & Humber AHSN is supporting the rollout of the eFI through its Healthy Ageing Collaborative. As a result of this work, the eFI has now been implemented by GPs and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) across the country.

Last year, the eFI won the Health IT Product Innovation category at the EHI Live 2016 Awards and was cited as a major factor in the Yorkshire and Humber region retaining international recognition for its active and healthy ageing initiatives.

Richard Stubbs, Interim Managing Director at the Yorkshire & Humber AHSN, commented: “Winning this award is a fantastic achievement and shows how this programme is making a real difference for patients both in the Yorkshire and Humber region and nationally. This is because of the improvements in the quality of care it is helping to deliver and we are really proud of this work.”

The Huddle Up for Safer Healthcare (HUSH) Team was also nominated in the Quality Improvement category. This award recognises outstanding clinical activity that contributes to excellent patient care by applying best practice and aiming to improve performance.

Through the HUSH programme, the Yorkshire & Humber AHSN’s Improvement Academy is supporting more than 120 front-line teams in hospitals in the region to integrate multi-professional safety huddles into routine clinical care to help reduce harm for example falls, pressure ulcers and improve recognition of deteriorating patients and management of sepsis.

The Huddles provide an opportunity for all ward staff, including support staff such as ward clerks, housekeepers and care support workers to get together to have a brief, focused discussion about patients who are most at risk of harm and what can be done to reduce the risk.

Teams that have successfully embedded huddles into their ward routine have reduced falls by an average of 50 per cent and have seen improved results in ward teamwork and safety culture surveys.

To date, 2,573 patients who would have fallen haven’t and more than £1.8m has been saved from direct health and social care costs.